3. Comb Jellies

When you ask someone that question, the answers that you may receive are countless. Some may speak of America like it is a paradise, the land of freedom, some may call it a hellscape, a capitalist horro, and some may just change the topic, declining to approach the controversial topic of the United States, a global power, and an altogether confusing country. America has always been seen as more of an ideal than a country. “The land of opportunity, the land of freedom.” The place where anyone can do anything. But I’ve never truly understood that view. Yes, America is a free place. You can speak about whatever you want and do whatever you desire, but at the same time it is a dangerous place. People can shun you for your ethnicity, for your sexuality, for your gender. You can walk down the street and hear people calling you slurs if they so please. Terrible things happen in the U.S. all the time. You look on the news and there it is: school shootings, murders, passing of laws that restric...

  I’m American. I despise the British (cuisine).  Most appetizing photo of British food products. Just like the precious British tea which Americans found so horrid, we threw it overboard, I openly detest whatever “food” the Brits like to eat. My friend on the other hand, loves the British…and their dastardly sustenance. But this friend of mine, oh bless her, is also an American like me. Why on earth should I even stay friends with such a traitor to our nation of greater eats?   Well, why should I tie a person’s value to the stereotype they should portray?  (Nobody told me to do such a thing…but I naturally wandered toward this perspective when lightheartedly conversing with my friend).  The stereotype in question is that Americans should not be quite fond of the British, or of whatever disgraces they happen to be conjuring in their kitchens. Of course, not all Americans really openly dislike the British people—its been hundreds of years since some certain ...

Today (because like almost everyone else I am writing this on the day it is due), as we began our anti-prejudice unit in class, I let my eyes wander towards the books my classmates held in their hands as they rushed through the door, mumbling about word requirements for the POAS biography or the latest test they just bombed. As I did, I saw something astonishing; my classmates had actually annotated their books . And no, I’m not talking about little doodles of cats and Labubus, I’m talking about actual Pinterest-worthy collages of multicolored post-its, highlighting, and notes scribbled in juicy black ink. I was bombarded with the realization that these productive people had actually committed the act of analysis—instead of, like me, drawing a silly egg on the first page of an account of violent American xenophobia before giving up and leaving the entire book looking fresh, crisp, and clean out of its plastic wrapping. At first, I felt a little ashamed, especially as my peers humbly s...

No Kings Earlier this week, I dreamt that I went to the No Kings rally. It was very abstract---signs that paraphrased those I saw from photos, voices I heard from the news, and the sense of drowning in the clamoring of bodies. A smattering of skin toned paints over the American flag would be the most accurate feeling. This is mostly me trying to remember the details and taking heavy inspiration (and a quote) from a news report on the rally by MSNBC. From the pit of the dark’s stomach, Buried in a snow-laid bed in a nowhere suburbia Acid sparks fire from light. The marching commences,  Un-metronome movement—it’s messy, Try shoving water in a single file line  It thrashes and dances  Hope drives it up, anger drives it further up the shore Spirit moves and will move  Bodies. Hearts heard the trembling trumpets calling. The silence that followed, How the flying flag slowed And turned a deeper scarlet.  And the rhythm crawled all the way home To the listening eyes an...

(I would like to preface and ask you to listen to “The Bigger Picture” before reading. Trust me, it is a SUCH a great song by Lil Baby + IT WILL MAKE THIS SO MUCH MORE ENJOYABLE!) “Wah-wah-wah.” What does this make you think of? Probably the cries of a baby. But, AND HOPEFULLY, not just any baby—the sound of American rapper Lil Baby, but more specifically the line from his hit song “Yes Indeed.”  Two years later—in 2020—Lil Baby released what became another hit song, “The Bigger Picture.”  At this time, I did not truly understand the lyrics of this song and the message he was conveying. But, after growing—physically and mentally—I have come to understand he is more than a rapper; Lil Baby is an activist.  “The Bigger Picture” was created in exigence of George Floyd’s death. Lil Baby, or Dominique Armani Jones, starts this melody with the repetition of protesters chanting, “I can’t breathe! I can’t breathe!” alluding to the tragic death of Floyd. Baby then criticizes the p...

  Jaycee Week #5: Unknown America America is well known around the world but only for the largest landmarks. Think about it, whenever you visit another place and you tell them you're from California the first question is always, “do you live near Hollywood?” There are only a few places that are truly known about like the Grand Canyon, Yellowstone, D.C., and of course Hollywood. But, there are many more areas that played a part in making America into what it is today.  Fort Mose, Florida This is a 40’acre historic park in Florida is where the first legally sanctioned free African American settlement was created in 1738. The 100+ African Americans who lived here combined American, Spanish, and Native American cultural customs together to create a new  cultural community. Calumet, Michigan Now a ghost town, Calumet used to be a large copper mining town in the 1880’s. The town was filled with a dense number of immigrants coming to work from all over. This led to an exchange ...

In 1972, there were almost 200 laws in the United States that discriminated on the basis of sex. One such law was known as the Caregiver Tax Deduction: it stated that taxpayers who were the sole caretaker of someone could deduct the expenses of that care from their taxes. However, the Caregiver Tax Deduction only applied to women, divorced people, and men whose wives were incapacitated. The law did not apply to never married men.  In 1972, Charles Moritz, a never married man who was the sole caretaker for his mother, tried to deduct the expenses of his mother’s care from his taxes.  He was denied the benefit of the law.  Upon hearing about this case, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, her husband Marty Ginsburg, and the ACLU decided to represent Charles Moritz in court. They argued that the law was unconstitutional because it provided single women the tax deduction but not single men, despite both being in the same situation. Ginsburg explained that the law stemmed from the idea that o...

The glorious, satiating flesh of the humble cantaloupe. Back in middle school, my friend group conducted a school-wide (well, not really schoolwide; you bloggers would’ve heard of it then) survey amongst both students and faculty on the topic of our heated debate over the best melon species: cantaloupe, honeydew, or watermelon . Our squad of surveyors would disperse throughout the day, over the period of a week, and collect information from our classmates and teachers regarding their opinion on the melons. Melons …are an easily approachable subject. There were some alarming people out there who did not know what honeydew or cantaloupe were—but it added to the depth of the answers as watermelon turned out to be the most popular melon. I, of course, was devastated. Because cantaloupe is obviously the best thing to have ever been cultivated by humans.  But maybe we—my middle-school-aged friends and myself—did not understand the true workings of bias . 

 What makes up an identity? I’ve been talking and speaking and ranting about identity and how different factors influence identity this whole time, so I think it's time to speak about my views on my own identity. Identity is a flexible thing. It changes based on how you and others see yourself. Some may call a person quiet while others know them to be loud and talkative. Some may call them not smart while others could call them talented. Identity is one of those things that is ridiculously hard to pin down since it so heavily relies on perspective and what the person is like with the subject.  I adore reading books, especially fictional novels. I read all kinds of novels, from science fiction to realistic historical, I collect them all and read them and take everything I can from them before I stop reading. I blitz through novels, devouring them and immersing myself in the characters.  Why bring this up, you may be asking right now? What does this have to do with identity...

A copy of the drawing used in "The Teacher," or the  Parabola  issue. The entire piece, titled "Examples," was a catalogue of Franck's interactions with various philosophical figures, including Japanese Zen masters and Pope John XXIII.  “Ethics is nothing else than reverence for life.” - Albert Schweitzer I recently stumbled across this belief of Schweitzer’s in an issue of Parabola , a spiritual magazine. The words were simple, etched on a cleanly blank page next to a rough pencil sketch of Schweitzer furring his brow in contemplative thought. Yet, they struck deep. The concept of reverence for life is simple: we’re all human, so we all cherish life, right? Should this not be an easily given principle, without needing to be explicitly said out loud? Apparently not. Almost every human is afraid of death (we’ve all thought about it at least once), yet we turn a blind eye to the fragility and fleetingness of life. We easily become hostile when people become sligh...

Jaycee Snelson-Week 4: Dance Dance For 8 years dance was my life. I would perform a plethora of styles from contemporary to musical theater (yes, it is an actual form of dance). I would spend countless hours at the dance studio perfecting multiple routines and getting them ready for competitions. When I wasn’t dancing I was doing homework or playing in the studio until my next dance class. Spending early mornings into late afternoons performing and cheering on dance after dance. I was living, eating, breathing dance. But, I slowly phased out of the competitive dance world as I found other passions I wanted to explore.  Dance Growing up I remember watching dancing with the stars with my grandma. Every week I would go to her house and spend an hour mesmerized by the dances performed. Watching as each pair conquered the theme of the night in so many different ways. Praying that my favorite pro and his partner would be safe to dance again the following week. Dreaming of the day when ...